"I'm making it up as I go." I said to nephews Caleb and Ben, both staring at me on a Friday afternoon while seated at their individual electric pianos.
I hope that their 11 and 9 year old selves haven't figured it out yet but, that admission? It applies to a lot of things in my life at the moment! Lol.
But the situation I meant for it to apply to - for the purposes of that afternoon and for this blog - was piano lessons.
About a year ago we were covering introductions and talking about some basic music terminology and I found myself challenged because, as someone who is BARELY a musician, - lol - I've found I am also barely a music educator.
Poor kids. Lol.
Anyway, we were talking about melody and harmony and the difference between the two.
We settled on some definitions that I think I'm still, to this day, pretty pleased by.
"Melody - the notes on the page, the ones you sing, the ones that make a song sound familiar."
"Harmony - the notes that usually aren't on the page, the ones you hear in your head that when you sing them make the melody sound more beautiful." 😊
As it turns out, just about anything worth listening to contains a strong melody and a strong harmony that both have to be proficiently played in order to make the maximum amount of impact.
That's something I hope my brother's boys are picking up on in our weekly piano lessons and something that I hope that I continue to possess enough character and integrity to be able to teach them. Because it is vital to so much more than just a flawless performance of "God Is So Good" (which my nephews can play like little Mozarts, by the way... in case you were wondering).
You have to have a main theme that is capable of taking on occasional tinges of pain and sometimes supporting a dissonant note or two if you're going to craft a quality musical composition.
That's a no brainer.
I think life is meant to be symphonic and so those rules apply to developing our own sense of personal ethics just like they apply to combining chords together into a well played song. 👂
And we've all been doing that these last 18 or so months, haven't we?
Developing ourselves ethically? Or at least trying to.
And just like Nick trying to pretend he's qualified to teach children how to play a musical instrument, most of us are finding that as we attempt to craft life philosophies that are everything that they should be that we're all kind of just making it up as we go along.
Should we be on the side of the folks who want to enforce mask and vaccine mandates?
Or the side of those who say that all of this has moved at a pace that we should be uncomfortable with and is setting dangerous precedents where things like government overreach and personal liberty are concerned?
What would Jesus do if He were living through what we've all been living through?
Would He roll up his sleeve?
Would He encourage faith based abstinence of any modern medical treatment?
Would He give us His blessing to lead a charge against those who want to limit our involvement in our communities and local economies until we shutup and do as we are told?
Would He tell us that His will is for us to be doormats? Or lab rats?
That it's all for the greater good because vaccines are supposed to protect the vulnerable among us and protecting the vulnerable was a core tenet of His earthly ministry; widows and orphans and such?
I don't know about you but I see people who I know love Jesus and who care about what He thinks of how they live their lives doing ALL of those things right now.
It's not easy to identify what part of the song is the melody and which is the harmony right now, is it?
If you're anything like me, you hate this. lol
You hate it because the harmony is supposed to be clearly distinguishable from the melody and vice versa and if we can't even figure out which is which, how are we going to functionally teach our kids what music is even supposed to sound like?
The truth is we need both in order for the song that God is trying to compose to be able to be played.
And that's frustrating!
If you've ever been in a choir, lol, you know how awful it can be when the different sections start competing to out sing one another.
It's usually the sopranos who let themselves get carried away first.
They are the easiest to hear and our ear gravitates towards what they're doing by virtue of the fact that the most recognizable refrains of whatever song is being sung are *usually* being sung by them!
Not to mention the soprano section usually has a pretty high number of ladies in its ranks.
Most women in choral groups sing soprano.
And the more of them that there are, the easier it begins to feel like you're being drowned out if you're singing any part other than theirs.
Men in church choirs usually let this go on unchallenged until the final rehearsal of the Easter cantata or Christmas pageant or whatever type of concert the choir is being expected to be in tip top shape for. Lol
That's when that tenor section develops a collective consciousness and really starts to bellow.
Like a group of humpback whales, they sing from their guts and over power their female counterparts until the communion glasses in the serving trays on the altar begin to create ripples of grape juice within not unlike what we see happen when a T-Rex is approaching during a Jurassic Park movie.
And the sad thing?
Everyone is convinced that this loud, over powering shouting match is exactly what the people listening in the audience WANT to be hearing... everyone singing their loudest and mixing their voices in such a way that the original cadence of the music is completely lost.
2020 and 2021 have been, for me, like sitting in that concert.
You're all singing on blast and it's self indulgent noise that's giving me a fucking headache.
Seriously.
Can you all please just shut up?
I'm forgetting how to love you and I was never very good at it to begin with!
I need it to be something audibly palatable again. In fact, we ALL need that!
I need there to be a healthy skepticism of government and big pharma and Dr. Anthony Fauci... but I also need those skeptics not to let their imaginations run away with them! I need them to stay rooted in reality and not try to sell me on the idea that there's no way back from all of the wild things we've experienced as a nation these last 18 months and change!
Because with God, there's always a way back.
Sometimes it's a one way ticket in the belly of a fish but by one means or another, He'll do whatever it takes! Lol. 👂👂
Sticking with the original metaphor, I know that with God there's always a way back because of a musical concept known as resolve.
The song isn't finished until there's resolve.
The simple chord structure that opened whatever piece you're listening to, it finds it's way through a complex mine field of harmony in order to resurface at the song's conclusion.
And when it does?
You appreciate it more than you did than the first time you heard it, don't you?
Because after it's waded through all the deep waters it had to wade through to attach itself to all the complex harmonies that it encountered, those simple opening chord structures have proved themseleves.
You and I listening to them didn't give them validity.
The listener doesn't advocate for the song's initial chord structure to prevail!
It just does and it gains a validity we find ourselves moved by emotionally all on its own and with the passage of time.
There's no substitute for time when you're letting yourself become emotionally invested in a beautiful song.
And if 2020 and 2021 are compositions that the Almighty eventually intends to turn into something beautiful, that is something that (just like everything else He's ever done!) is going to take TIME!
Ear worms need time to fully form in their cocoons. 😊
So maybe you can stop yelling at me about how selfish I am for not wanting to take a vaccine that hasn't had time to be put through the traditional years worth of tests that every other vaccine gets put through?
And maybe I can stop listening to the talking heads on the conservative news stations that want me to believe you're a socialist.
Maybe we can all just agree to give one another the TIME we need to figure out how all these intricate pieces of music are supposed to go together and make something that when played appropriately will glorify our Father in Heaven.
Maybe, ironically, the one thing that we most need to make this attempt at a global hymn sound amazing is grace!
And maybe we need an example we can let our souls marinate in that illustrates how sad it is when grace is withheld.
I'll attempt one!
One thing I've come to really grieve as a result of living through the pandemic is the loss of respect for a journalist I personally used to just really love.
One Mr. Anderson Cooper.
I wish that I could sell him on the virtues of remembering what it is to take your time to learn the part you're supposed to be singing.
See, like me, Anderson spent the majority of his life in the closet and didn't come out until he had a contract with a major cable news network and was a well established television personality.
I remember people giving him flack for taking the time to figure out exactly how and when he should reveal his sexuality to his television audience and I remember thinking that those people should sit down and shut their damn traps!
Anderson often reported live from countries where he, his crew, his informants - any of them could be compromised or even killed if it were known that he was gay.
It took time for him to figure out how to live authentically in the way that was best for him and for the people he loved. I remember thinking that if *I* was going to be a person who says that he believes in grace that those were not things I should begrudge or shame him for wanting to consider.
I just wish now that he would grant me the same courtesy.
His newscast has become a bully pulpit in which he and his guests routinely chide people for not taking any of the various available Covid vaccines while out and out calling us "selfish" for our part in the continued loss of life.
It's an astonishing lack of grace being practiced over on CNN these days. 😞
Anderson, my friend. I would never have told you you were selfish or responsible for the loss of life when you took your time figuring out how you felt about coming out.
Even if I could prove that your hesitancy to own your sexuality resulted in people committing suicide who maybe wouldn't have it they saw you being brave enough to own your orientation a little sooner than what you did.
You had to take your time to figure out how you were going to contribute to a complex symphony.
And Covid is no different, sir.
So it may attract advertisers and earn you Nielsen ratings when you play clips of people obnoxiously refusing the vaccine on grounds that seem baseless.
Just like it earns Fox those same ratings when they play videos of alleged Ph.D's saying that the vaccine is reprogramming your body's DNA to turn you into part chimpanzee, part eggplant. lol
The sopranos and the tenors have to stop competing and start realizing they're all supposed to be singing their individual tunes in a way that complements their counterparts.
We are so far apart... and so close to death... that it doesn't seem like we'll ever be able to come together and make beautiful music again.
Like Caleb trying to learn to play the notes from the treble clef while Ben tries to learn to play the notes from the bass clef.
Or...
...like the two trees my in laws gifted us when we bought our house last year. 😊
Zach, being very in tune with his libra indecisiveness, scoured the internet when his mom and dad told us that they wanted to purchase some trees for us to plant on our new property.
Ultimately, he decided on two gingko biloba trees.
I'm a plant geek and have been since my summers working in the Lawn & Garden department at various Walmart stores through high school and college.
I wasn't overly familiar with this variety but I figured, hey, why not?
When they arrived, Zach diligently plotted out where they both would go.
On the west side of our front yard, on one side of the sidewalk that leads to our front door he planted the tree that I began to think of as my tree.
On the east side, he planted the one that I secretly thought of as his tree.
It's going to take a lot of time for those two trees to mature and grow independently of one another before they even come close to having their branches extended out far enough to touch one another.
But when they do? Damn, that's gonna be beautiful.
And in the meantime, we just have to let them grow at their own rate.
Never thinking of them as being in competition with one another.
Never thinking that one has to survive and dominate in a way that would overshadow the other.
Just letting each tree respond to its own plot of earth in a way that will permit maturation.
The pro-maskers and anti-vaxxers need to do this same thing.
Zach & I need to do this same thing. 😊
The Big Guy and I are coming up on five years of marriage on September 3. 👂👂👂
I don't know about all of you but our marriage has hit a few rough spots courtesy of the pandemic. Lol
We both have individual values that we place on the roles of science, government and our overall sense of personal ethics.
They don't always jive.
But I think we know we're both in concert together.
I think we both know it's not a competition; that we both need to make allowances for one another to feel the way we feel and be as messy as we need to be as we continue to try to figure out how to be in harmony with one another on the issue of Covid-19... and every other hot button issue that comes along.
I feel honored and privileged to be in a marriage with someone who gives me that grace.
Anderson Cooper's sorry ass certainly wouldn't ever give me the consideration that Mr. Zach Bieghler does! LOL!
Even if all my branches grow out exclusively to the west and all of his arc out eastward towards the rising sun, eventually I have full faith that they'll intermingle on the other side of the world even if they fail to take the easiest route to achieving close contact - just reaching out towards one another across the sidewalk in front of our humble, little home. 💗
The melody is always the part that sounds familiar.
It's the part that takes on sharp edges and adapts when it encounters dissonant harmony somewhere in the middle of the song.
That's the musical theory behind my love for my guy and his love for me.
And it can be the theory behind how we all learn to love one another again if we can just get the competition to come to a close...
...between the sopranos and the tenors.
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👂 = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6SEbXTRwZQ
👂👂 = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRxLhwUsvVk
👂👂👂 = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh0egzgsfcU
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